A kids trying hes damndest and getting a B is better then a kid getting an easy A.

No that’s wrong. If my kid got an A in final years of science and wasnt able to tell me the laws of thermodynamics I would take him out of school and put him in one that would actually teach him. unfortunately the real world doesn’t care about effort, only results. you should not get a uni degree on effort but by knowing the stuff and being able to show it. same for jobs, if I an cruising or I am struggling my boss doesn’t care to much (so long as I don’t burn out) only that the job gets done.

The US government doesn’t like having flaws pointed out, if they can turn this on you they will. However this scanner is only part of the plan and a gun will be more visible due to the nature of the device and how it works, a small metal tin is not a good test.

Biofuel is made from whate4ver is cheapest, unfortunately waist material is not cheap, corn is. So what do we get, people in third world countries who can make more money by selling to oil companies (as they will invest in biofuel as the money is there)than at the local market.
The result of this is starvation and an increase in food cost for those who can least afford it. I don’t like the reliance on oil but at this point it’s what we need to use while we work out the details of moving to another option.
Make the change to other options but don’t do it at the expense of people, spend the time to do it properly and ban bio fule made in a way that it hurts others (The ban on ‘Blood dimonds’ springs to mind)

I once read a great paper on space combat, one of the biggest problems it said there would be is finding the enemy, think WW2 submarine combat only moreso as the ranges are huge.
Then there is space junk and maneuvering, we must assume some kind of kinetic shielding otherwise a hick with a shotgun and a space suite will be the winner.
So with Shielding we are left with mostly beam/partical weapons.
Second would be the SIZE of the wepons, more likely is one super weapon running down the spine of the ship and a few missiles/anti-missile mass drivers.
Once you have a spine mounted weapon with range such as a laser you get issues with travel time, you have to estimate where they will be in one or two seconds. If they are trying to close range they are an easy target so ranges will likely be measured in light seconds or minutes.

I worked for CSIRO(The Australian government run science organization) as a computer monkey and before the recent government meddling they produced a LOT for the size of the org. (we aren’t the US)
The cross communication lead to a lot breakthroughs. Eg A medical researcher was talking to a friend working on hydraulics, noticed the way he has been joining the hydraulic lines and got the idea to do the same thing for major high pressure arteries. It was radical for its time and it worked, took off big time after trials. (don’t know if its still done that way.)
This may not be a bad thing if they take it seriously and really invest.